Simplicable Guide

11 Types of Reason

John Spacey, March 03, 2020

Reason is the human capacity for thinking in a reasonable way with intent to produce good judgement. The following are common types of reason.

Deductive Reason

Deductive reason begins with a hypothesis and seeks to confirm it with evidence. This is a basis for science, logic and basic thought processes such as learning by trial and error. For example, an child who thinks a word might be bad so they use it to see what happens.

Inductive Reason

Inductive reason is a bottom up approach that begins with evidence and works towards a conclusion. Inductive reason is a formal process that doesn't allow for guesses. For example, an investigation into an aircraft accident that only develops a theory when ample evidence has been collected and analyzed.

Abductive Reason

Abductive reason is the same as inductive reason except that it allows for informal guesses that can then be confirmed with deductive reason. For example, a marketing team that looks for evidence to explain a decrease in customer demand that finds evidence that a popular competitor is eating into their business.

Heuristics

Heuristics are practical guesses that are made to handle uncertainty, grey areas, complexity and fast moving situations. For example, a driver who sees a blurry image out of the corner of their eye who guesses it could be a bicycle headed into their path such that they quickly apply the brakes of their vehicle.

Intuitive Reason

Intuitive reason is a term for natural thought processes that aren't systematized. This can include emotion, logic and heuristics. For example, a flight attendant who instantly feels that a bout of turbulence is likely to be bad.

Verbal Reason

The process of thinking with words. This is a primary type of human thought, such that language tends to impact how you think. For example, learning a second language can transform an individual's worldview.

Visual Thinking

Humans can understand and think with pictures. For example, a graph or chart is often easier to understand than raw data.

Imagination

Imagination is the human ability to think about things in ways that differ from reality. This is a powerful tool of reason. For example, a thought experiment or analogy that allows for the simplification of a complex problem.

Motivated Reasoning

Motivated reasoning is the pervasive tendency for motivation to color thought. For example, seeking evidence for what you want to believe as opposed to objectively evaluating all evidence.

Fallacies

Fallacies are patterns of failed logic that commonly taint reasoning. These can be remarkably difficult to identify such that reason benefits from a process of critical peer review and debate.

Cold Logic

Cold logic is reason that fails to consider human factors such as emotion, language, culture, rights, freedoms, quality of life and the human experience. For example, an company that designs an alternative to high speed rail without any thought to the customer experience such that is incredibly bumpy with passengers becoming fearful and sick even at low speeds.